


Tipperary

by DrGraves



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Ghost Of You Video, Angst, Battle, Dead Mikey, First Sergeant Frank, Gen, Medic Ray, Officer Gerard, PTSD, Post-The Ghost of You Video, Realistic, Speculative, War, World War II, except its chem, like a little snapshot of saving pvt ryan, military terminology, music video continuation, sorry bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21591160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrGraves/pseuds/DrGraves
Summary: A hundred and sixty-six days and counting since D-Day.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Tipperary

**Author's Note:**

> The battle in this story is (very) loosely based on a real one fought by the 29th Infantry Division in December of 1944. A lot of creative liberties have been taken, but this isn't meant in any way to undermine the duty and sacrifice of the people who gave their lives during the second World War. 
> 
> Military Terms Defined:
> 
> -Shell Scraping: interchangeable with foxhole; it's a hole  
> -Webbing: field equipment packs worn over the shoulders  
> -NCO: non-commissioned officer  
> -CO: commanding officer  
> -Bivouac: it's a tent  
> -Railway Gun: travels by railroad, as the name implies. They're big and scary; think cannon on Satan's pirate ship

The sun rises dusty over Jülich. Behind Gerard’s closed eyelids the light is the same color as blood on sand. He doesn’t open his eyes yet, wondering when and how he’d fallen asleep. He gets his answer when he has to peel himself from the dirt of his shell scraping. It rained last night, and he remembers giving up on keeping the water out of his tactical home for the night, instead sitting in the mud and wondering how much rain it would take to liquefy the earth and bury B-Company.

He cracks his eternally stiff neck and peers at the pale sky. He isn’t concerned about missing reville; he always wakes up before it anyway, before the dreams can catch up to him. It’s been a hundred and sixty-six days since D-day, since blood on sand, since Ray Toro, T-4 combat medic held the last seconds of his brother’s life in his bloody hands. Since Gerard became NCO of three-platoon.

His hair is greasy and too long, and he flattens it under his helmet as he digs in the pockets of his webbing for rations. He doesn’t look at the label—he doesn’t care—and shovels the calories in his mouth. His hands are jittery from the cold of the night and cigarette withdrawal.

“-ay! Way! Lieutenant fucking Way!”

“Here,” he calls. The voice is raw from yelling during yesterday’s assault, but he’s pretty sure it’s Frank. The helmet that pokes over the edge of his foxhole confirms it, the dent of a bullet impact over his left eyebrow. It had given Gerard a goddamn heart attack when Frank had been hit during yesterday’s disaster of an advance. He’d staggered and fell limp in the arms of Corporal Wallace and amongst the whistle of mortars overhead Gerard thought, _God, not him, too._ But his helmet stopped the bullet, and he was awake a half hour later, the impact having knocked him out. A hot meal in the med tent while Ray made sure his brain wasn’t going to swell did him wonders.

“The Cap wants you,” Frank—Gerard should really call him First Sergeant Iero—says. He’s filthy, and Gerard can only imagine how bad he looks in comparison. 

“Why? It’s not reville yet,” Gerard waves his fork at Frank.

Frank sits down and swings his booted feet, kicking his heels against the dirt of the foxhole. It makes him look small, like he’d lied about his age on his enlistment form. “It was ten minutes ago, actually,” he says.

A younger Gerard would have panicked, but this Gerard can’t find it in him. He picks up his rifle and checks the safety, and as he leaves his shell scraping Frank raps his knuckles on his helmet. “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he says, and digs in his pockets for cigarettes.

Gerard tries his best to go get ‘em. He makes his way to Captain Evans’s bivouac and turns his eyes to the floor as he goes in. 

His CO’s voice is venomous when he says, “Glad you’ve decided to join us, Gerard.” The use of his first name makes his cheeks burn in a vague sort of shame. The other platoon leaders’ eyes are on him, some pitying and some just tired. They're all unshaven and their combats are more brown than green. They’ve been on the front lines for a long time.

“My apologies, sir,” Gerard says, and stands at parade rest. Captain Evans’s glare goes down in magnitude as he returns to his makeshift sand table. 

“As platoons one, two, and four know,” he says pointedly, “This is a nighttime advance, and stealth is imperative. I’ll say again, I’m putting one-platoon back on light artillery; you’ll cover us all the way to C-Company’s position. Two- and four-platoon, you’ll be a joint sweeper team-”  
Gerard makes eye contact with First Lieutenant Walker, and wordlessly every platoon leader in the tent takes a pencil and paper out of their webbing pockets.

Mikey is supposed to do this part. He’d led three-platoon for about ten minutes before the Germans mowed him down on Omaha. Then the job fell to Gerard, flayed and screaming and clueless on the sand. He flailed with the new responsibility but led his platoon to safety, God knew how. Then the rest of B-company’s assault through France had been spent coming into his own. Saying prayers to a cold crucifix for Mikey’s soul. Something had broken inside him that day, he’s sure. Frank says he’d seen it in the way shutters clipped closed behind his eyes. He hadn't felt anything since Mikey. He remembers fear as rounds clip at his heels and he shouts himself hoarse at his platoon: _Fucking pepper-pot; Suppressive fire left flank,_ but remembering it is a whole lot different from feeling it.

After the briefing they have time to kill, and Gerard hates it when they have time to kill. He's written up notes for Evans's action report and checked with the medics, so he goes to Frank. They sit in the dirt and go over the company's supplies. It's mindless work so they talk and chainsmoke to fill the space. Sergeant Toro puts in a request for more morphine and clean sharps. He also lifts the rim of Frank's helmet and cups his face in his hands to look at the cloudy purple bruise where the bullet had hit. Frank’s walking wounded—low priority—but Ray Toro and his endless goodness check up on him anyway. Frank puckers his lips at him, batting his eyelashes like a dame. 

"Spare a kiss, darlin'?" Frank simpers.

"Not in public, sweetheart," Ray says dryly, and pulls Frank's helmet down over his eyes. “You feel dizzy? Nauseous?”

“Feel like I can’t fuckin’ see.”

“Don’t think he’s gonna make it, doc,” Gerard says around his cigarette, and there’s a heartbeat before they’re startled into laughter. The best Gerard can manage is a bitter little smile. Good to know he hasn’t completely dropped off the deep end, though. He can still make a goddamn joke. Ray leaves after telling his joke about the scarecrow (“Why’d he get promoted, Frank, huh?”) and it’s quieter but not bad. But the mood sobers quickly. Gerard squints up at the sky that can never hold its color. It bleeds white around this time every day.

Frank toes the dirt with his boot. “So,” he says. “Gut Hasenfeld tomorrow. Tonight.”

It’s not a question, even though he technically shouldn’t know until Evans gives the OK for his platoon leaders to do their own briefings. Frank has a way of knowing things. And because he’s invaluable as a first sergeant he’s become a sort of pseudo-officer. Gerard hopes he dies before Frank, because there’s no one else in three-platoon he would trust to lead it in his absence except Iero. 

“It’s a fucking mile of plains,” Gerard says, and he’s sucking on the filter of his last cigarette. He stubs it out. “And if the 107th can’t take out that railway gun it’ll blow through us.”

“They’ll take it out,” Frank said. “They’re more well-supplied than us, remember?”

That wasn’t saying much. B-Company was barely at three-quarters’ strength, and A and C were no better. “And the fucking field’s mined. There’s no tree cover and there’s gotta be a gunner position we don’t even know about. There always is… “ Gerard trails off, letting his wrists hang limp between his knees.

“So you think we’re fucked,” Frank says.

“And I don’t even care,” Gerard admits. “I mean, I’m not going to doom my fucking platoon, but if Evans goes down I’m CO and I couldn’t give a fuck. Feel like I should be scared.”

"Maybe you just can't feel fear anymore. They should promote you: General of the Army."

"Move over, Eisenhower," Gerard agrees.

Frank folds his legs under him, then reaches in the pocket of Gerard’s webbing. Gerard sighs and lets him unfold his maps and spread them out on top of a crate. It becomes a briefing without anyone saying anything, and the entirety of three-platoon gathers to listen to Gerard relay what will happen when they go on the offensive. Faces fall and Gerard can’t find it in him to care. They’re fucked anyway, and they all know it. There’s no use in trying to say anything different. It’s silent after he’s done talking, ‘cause they can all see the stress cracks in Evans’s plan and Gut Hasenfeld smoking palely in the distance.

“Sure thing, L.T.,” Ray says into the quiet.

Hours later, the men clutch their crucifixes and night falls. Gerard smears his face in cam-cream and checks three-platoon’s noiseproofing. Nothing can jangle or shine while B-company is on the offensive, otherwise they're more fucked than they already are. Frank has drawn Xs over his eyes in cam cream in a bit of black humor, and Gerard smears the lines with three fingers as he goes by. It breaks up the shape of Frank’s face in the dark. With Evans’s light dicipline at “whose fucking lighter is that” level he can barely recognize his men as night falls over Jülich. He flips up his collar to hide the copper stripe that marks him as a target.

They fall in with two- and four-platoon. Since the company is cut down to two medics, Toro goes with them and Lance Corporal Du Mort follows one-platoon as they break off and establish gunner positions parallel to the Germans.

Three-platoon breaks left and drops behind, and they advance under the cloak of darkness. The moon is a peering eye over Gut Hasenfeld, like God’s judgement, and Gerard doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t think about mines, either. The disastrous assault two days ago cleared their path they’re traversing in secret. It’s pitted with craters and ghosts of casualties. 

The sweepers did a good job two days ago; no one steps on a mine as they creep in the dusky night to the point where Evans had called a retreat. Tonight this is where he calls a halt. Two-platoon get ready to lay down suppressive fire. Four-platoon pulls ahead to start sweeping mines. Gerard eyes the railroad tracks to three-platoon’s left. Something’s rising in his chest, like vomit. Except it’s not… except, he’s excited. He’s so excited he could fucking giggle. Hell, he would whistle a tune. He’s itching. Like sand in his boots on Omaha before he got used to the blisters. Like gravel in Mikey’s hair and grain in the wood box he was sent home in. 

“Step light, fellas,” he crows, and Frank eyes him sideways. He thinks he might be going crazy, just a little.

Moonlight catches on Private Singer’s white face, and Gut Hasenfeld explodes.

There’s clamor from the German front and immediately the cry goes up for “ _Medic!_ ” from four-platoon. Then Gerard orders his sweepers forward while he and the rest of three-platoon kneel, chattering covering fire as they start their agonizing seep over the powder keg of a field. His rifle hammers bruises into his shoulder. He thinks he’s laughing.

He hopes Mikey up in heaven is looking the other way. The earth vomits columns of dirt and gore at the minesweepers’ feet and they advance. Gerard’s at the front, and Evans is sprinting with a hand on his helmet. “Alternate sweepers,” he tells Gerard, and claps a hand to his shoulder as he leaves. His radioman intercepts him and he chatters furiously with battalion. 

The ground jars underneath Gerard’s feet, and he drops back to a knee. Light artillery starts whistling overhead, and the lightness in his chest doesn’t go away. Someone goes down next to Frank and he cries _medic_ with his face turned to the sky like it’ll save him. 

Then Evans is running again; he’s yelling and Gerard’s clip snaps hotly away from his rifle. “Railway gun incoming.”

Gerard stops shooting. Someone screams and Ray sprints by. “What?”

“Fucking railway gun, Way. Move three-platoon out of range next to two- otherwise you’ll get fucking demolished. That’s an order.”

Gerard relays the order: “Three-platoon, break towards two. Move! Toro, Concino, Wallace, stay for cas-evac then get the hell out of there.”

Oh, Mikey. Look the other way. This one’s going to be messy. But there’s still no fear left in Gerard. The hulking turret of the railway gun chugs air and gasoline. He shoves his platoon north. Evans is on with A-Company and shouting for heavy artillery right the fuck now. Look away, Mikey, cause they’re doomed, and it’s a shitshow. Gut Hasenfeld smokes and chugs and spits dirt, and Gerard isn’t scared. 

He brings up the back of his scrambling platoon and runs, and he’s humming “Tipperary” when the railway gun fires.


End file.
